Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Stage 4: Villers-Cotterêts to Joigny

Today's stage saw the withdrawal of one rider, Xabier Zandio, a Spaniard on the Caisse d'Epargne team. He was in 178th position in the General Classification. This reduces the peleton to a total of 186 riders.

Thirteen riders lost time on the stage today as they straggled in after the main peleton. Ten of them gained more than two minutes:

In other Lanterne Rouge press, there's a somewhat snarky piece at Bicycling.com that refers to the Lanterne Rouge as "first worst". That's certainly not what I would call some of the hardest-working, least-recognized riders in the peleton, but YMMV.